


leviathan

by fourhorsemen



Category: DCU
Genre: Angst, Because Jason Todd is not a reliable narrator when it comes to love and feelings, Kissing in the Rain, M/M, To be specific its an upside down spiderman kiss, Unreliable Narrator
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-19
Updated: 2020-10-19
Packaged: 2021-03-09 01:07:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,033
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27096265
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fourhorsemen/pseuds/fourhorsemen
Summary: Muted footsteps ring out in the dark of the alleyway, soft, twinkle-toed and familiar. It spurs Jason to shoot out his grapple to the closest ledge he sees. He’s got one foot on the building façade, about to heave himself over the ledge when he’s noticed.“Stalking me?” a voice rings out, amused and melodious but for the soft slur of exhaustion that underpins it.
Relationships: Dick Grayson/Jason Todd
Comments: 18
Kudos: 95





	leviathan

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Ariabunny](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ariabunny/gifts).



> Soundtrack:  
> Small Talk - Majid Jordan  
> Learn from Each Other - Majid Jordan

Muted footsteps ring out in the dark of the alleyway, soft, twinkle-toed and familiar. It spurs Jason to shoot out his grapple to the closest ledge he sees. He’s got one foot on the building facade, about to heave himself over the ledge when he’s noticed. 

“Stalking me?” a voice rings out, amused and melodious but for the soft slur of exhaustion that underpins it.

Jason pauses, he considers ignoring him, but he’s turned his head before he quite processes the thought, to take in the silhouette swathed in the blanket of night. He lets his eyes drink in the lithe shape of him leaned against the alley wall, half his face cast in shadow but one blue eye bright as a star, one sharp cheekbone colored in sharp relief under the light of a single street lamp at the mouth of the passage. 

It’s hard to look away. It always has been. 

Jason sighs, lets his body fall backwards with gravity, lets the line pull taut and stop him short. He hangs upside down, feet braced on a brick façade, staring at a flipped image of Nightwing, of Dick, like that would make his visage any less beautiful, make it any less painful to set his eyes upon. Dick walks towards him slowly, his gait is burdened with fatigue and yet the motion is fluid, alluring, exquisite. He pauses, inches away, face to face with Jason, who is still in his helmet. 

The lamp light falls on them both directly now, and Jason can see Dick’s face in full. 

He’s thankful for the helmet that shields him. He’s thankful for the glossy red veneer that lets him hoard the silently enamored, bitter pining he knows flows into his own gaze. He can see a reflection of it in Dick’s eyes, like it’s refracted through his helmet directly into azure blue. 

“I was in the neighbourhood,” Jason lies, and wonders if it will ring false through his voice modulator. 

By tracing the curve of the faint hint of a smile that graces Dick’s full lips, he has his answer. 

Dick doesn’t reply, just steps closer with a furrow to his brow, with an enigmatic shine to his eyes that Jason wishes he was able to parse. He’s never been able to read a person the way Dick can, never been able to trace the vestiges of their thoughts on their features. It’s a weakness, a sore point, a disadvantage. Jason isn’t an unknown quantity to Dick like Dick is to him. Sometimes even the helmet does not feel like enough because somehow, Dick can see right through him. 

There’s a crack of lightning that lights them up in electric white.

It’s a flash of a second that reveals a turbulent, wounded edge to blue eyes, and it makes the clap of thunder that follows feels almost poetic to Jason. It matches the rumble of his heart against his ribcage, which tries to beat out of his chest as Dick takes another step, as he raises a gloved hand to Jason’s neck in the pouring rain. The pitter patter of droplets on his helmet drown out the sound of Dick’s breath, but they don’t drown out Jason’s churning thoughts as Dick leans into him. 

Dick’s hair is drenched now, the rivulets of water that drip from the ends of it down the slope of his nose, down the curve of his cheek magnify his beauty, until Jason aches with it, aches with the urge to cup his palm around a fine-boned cheek. Jason was already enraptured the moment he’d walked into Bruce Wayne’s orbit and met soulful blue eyes, but now… 

Now, he feels bewitched. 

He’s under a spell. He must be, because it’s out of his control now, it’s impossible to stop gloved fingers from pressing into the button at the hinge of his jaw. The bottom half of his helmet slides beneath his chin with a quiet _snick_ in the roar of the rain, and then cold air shivers across the quickly dampening skin of his chin and lips. Raindrops drip down his chin, find their way into the crevices of his neck and gravity takes them to pool inside his helmet and wet his hair. Still Jason doesn’t protest, still he doesn’t pull away. 

A drop, cold as ice, creeps over the point of his chin and pools onto his bottom lip. 

Jason licks his lip reflexively and he sees Dick’s lips part in response to the motion. He hangs suspended in time, suspended in movement as Dick leans in and soft, chill, sweet lips press into his own. Jason opens his mouth into the gentle press, exhales shakily when fingers rest on his exposed jaw, on both sides, the barest hint of a gloved touch that still makes him feel like he’s been cracked open. Jason opens his mouth, surrenders to the light graze of a tongue on his bottom lip. 

It should be awkward. It should be a clumsy meeting of mismatched lips, with Jason hanging upside down and Dick standing right side up, but it’s not. It’s icy, it’s wet, and it’s tender - too tender - it’s intimate to the point of agony the way Dick’s fingers press just the slightest bit harder into his skin. It’s harrowing the way full lips get just a little sloppier, a little hasty, with a razor thin edge of frantic desperation to them as they move over Jason’s. 

It’s a goodbye kiss. 

Jason sighs into it, closes his eyes, hidden as they are behind the top half his helmet, and savors it. He curls his tongue around Dick’s, searches it, tastes only rainwater and what he imagines years of yearning tastes like, glacial in its depth, a hint of it on the surface that hides a leviathan below. It’s bitter goodbye, because they don’t fit together, not really and both of them know it. Their lips aren’t a perfect match for each other. Their bodies don’t fit into one another, their lives aren’t intertwined and their minds even less. 

He savors it, and hangs suspended in the rain, helmet half-open, long after Dick pulls away with a somber smile and disconsolate eyes. 

**Author's Note:**

> For Reika, my personal cheerleader on Discord. :')


End file.
